Showing posts with label Peninsula of Plenty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peninsula of Plenty. Show all posts

Monday, May 11, 2020

Assassin of the Empire

In my campaign, the Assassin in the Guild operate more as spies than killers. They are the secret police for the Emperor, persevering the peace through whispers and intimidation. Since the Human Empire is at war with dwarves and elves, assassins have a noticeable inability to infiltrate these societies. Sleep and height basically preclude it. Silly, but reasonable. They aren't sidelined by this lack, instead they keep the roads clear for the troops and citizens alike. They handle messages at all levels of government and even provide a private mail service. 

In this campaign assassins tend to work like urban and rural rangers, where the road between counts as a part of the creating town or village. Why not simply make them rangers? Because rangers operate completely without support in the wilderness, where as assassins and spies use and misuse resources already in place. Assassins require civilization to abuse, while rangers don't care about what everyone else is doing. Some of their skills collide, such as being knowledgeable about the lay of the land, habitation, trails, roads and alternate routes. But assassins can only work when they have the civil pact to violate. An assassin the woods is just as lost as a ranger in a church or temple.

Assassins will know the roads, the towns and the important places within the town. They are often attached to patrols to act as guides and reporters to civil agencies. They know the important people, and not just the people that think they are important. Assassins know the right scullery maids and court clerks. Rangers know different facts, which are clearly not in the same circle. 

Sunday, March 8, 2020

The Skin Wolf Golem

The Skin Golem or more commonly named, "The Skin Wolf" is a unique creation of the Coven of Ash.

The witches of the Coven of Ash wear these pelts as a stole or cape, which conveys the Skin Wolf's armor class to the wearer. The Coven of Ash tends to use the largest martens as Skin Wolves, which has 9 hit points. Wolves are not common in the area. Theoretically, any fur bearing mundane animal can be used to create a Skin Wolf, such as a weasel, a bear, dog or actual wolf. The witches of the Coven of Ash have tried to make gnoll, elf and human skin golems, but it doesn't work. It also does not work on giant variants of mundane animals like Worgs, Giant Weasels or Elk. The name "Skin Wolf" is colloquial, it isn't actually description of what they are made of. The humans of Empire are aware of these creatures and are terrified by them.

If a victim survives an attack by Skin Wolves, they will notice a particular smell about them which will alert them to future attacks and foils surprise one third of the time. Note: this also applies to the witches themselves if they are wearing one. The number of Skin Wolves appearing is always equal to the number of witches. These golems are only useful to the creator, they are powerless in other people's hands. 

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1-3
Armor Class: 7
Move: 18"
Hit Dice: Equal the living creature's hit dice.
% in lair: 100%
Treasure Type: Nil
Number of Attacks: 3
Damage/Attack: 1d4/1d4/1d4
Special Attacks: See Below
Special Defenses: See Below
Magical Resistance: See Below
Intelligence: Non Intelligent
Alignment: Neutral
Size: Various
Psionic Ability: Nil
 Attack/Defense: Nil/Nil

Skin Golems are relatively low level golems, which require a pelt and skull, special incense and the following spells: Friends, Clairaudience, Clairvoyance, and Fly. It requires a minimum of a 6th level caster and a piece of incense valued at ten times the number of hit points the golem will have. The pelt and skull must be pristine. It requires one day to create a skin golem with the materials on hand. Hit Points are determined by the size of the animal, but the living creature must have had at least one hit die.

The creation process requires gluing the pelt to the skull which looks far from natural. Sometimes the ears and eyes don't line up between the pelt and skull. Also, the witch may choose to dye the pelt to either be stylish or fearsome. The Coven of Ash has a tendency to consume the flesh of the animal, however this is an alarming life-style choice and is not a part of the ritual of creation.

The Skin Wolf is a weapon of terror. They fly up to 30 feet from the ground and sound like a bullroarer in motion. They can strike up to 3 different targets, once each along their 24" per round flight path. They target the people closest to the witch first and work outwards. They are very maneuverable, but cannot flip end for end and require momentum to do damage. Therefore they tend to strike 3 different targets in one round, not the same person over and over again. Since they are simply flying pelts, they cannot grab, bite or otherwise manipulate objects. They can knock things over which makes noise and a mess. On a natural 20, they hit so hard that they knock the victim down rather than doing double damage.

The witch can choose to directly order the skin wolf to attack a single target, however, this limits the Skin Wolf to one attack and only allows a strike on a target the witch can actually see. It also precludes the witch from casting spells or making their own attacks. If  a witch feels like they are in control of the combat, they will make gestures like they are direct control of the Skin Wolf to terrify victims. If a witch is invisible and wearing a Skin Wolf, issuing it commands counts as an attack and ends the invisibility for both. Skin Wolves cannot be silenced or turned invisible, it defeats their terrifying purpose.

If the Skin Wolf is not engaged in combat, the witch can see and hear (not smell) what the pelt can perceive. Usually, the witch will place the Skin Wolf someplace to watch an area not command it to fly around looking for targets, however that can be done, too.

They have a special defense, bolts and arrows do only 1 point of damage per hit. Also, grenade-like weapons have a -4 to hit and they can dodge splashes. This is not true of thrown daggers, darts and other hefty weapons. They do full damage.

Holy water does 1d3 points of damage. It is often more effective to pour the holy water on one's self than try to make a grenade like attack as this damages the Skin Wolf every time it successfully lands a hit.

Saturday, March 7, 2020

Legion of Assassins

Earlier this week, I posted 3 assassins, which I intend to use as Romanesque Legionaries. Why not fighters? Well, with a theoretical background as Citizen Soldiers, legionaries should have some atypical skills for a soldier because they are citizens first. Right within the AD&D description are examples of soft skills: disguise, poisoning, spying, plus a couple of others. In order to do these things, the assassin needs to have people skills. They also need to have other non-combat skills which support this.

Ideally, assassins should always have some sort of secondary professional skill. AD&D assumes that the assassin will take out the wizard, the lord or the high level cleric, but those people are surrounded by eyes. The ability to pass one's self off as a cook, a herald, a guard is paramount. It doesn't mean the assassin can actually do those tasks, they merely need to make someone else think that they can.

This is one of the reasons I wrote Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners. The players need a host of reasonable skills to get into the head of their characters so it is beneficial to have NPC's which operate in that mundane capacity. Zero to Hero gives mechanical statistics to these characters, which might not always be necessary, but can be helpful to everyone. The players are acting out the adventures of a fantastic person which is hard enough, the addition of relatively common folk gives them a scaffold to get there. Plus all of the classes in Zero to Hero have relatively few combat abilities which doesn't increase the mechanical risk to players, it levels the playing field so a small handful of heroes can deal with a huge ensemble of characters on a basic level.

Assassins aren't all about assassination. They break into the sausage factory to make extra special sausage.

This was the operational method of the Romans. They could hand anyone their butt on the battlefield, but after that, then what? Soft skills to get the defeated to continue to defeat themselves. Assassins as soldiers make a lot of sense. Someone needs to collect information and do dastardly things. If you think about it, a legionary was probably eyeing up his compatriots and leaders as much as the enemy. Sometimes, they were looking homeward for any news about family or politics which often ingratiated them to the very people they were looking to take advantage of or wipe out. Assassins make a lot of sense as fighting men.

Even if you don't want to introduce the complexity of a class of classes like Zero to Hero, I hope this changes how you consider placement of assassins in your world.

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Well... that was different. Campaign update.






Our strategic map. The black marks in the middle are coffee



The theater of the trash heap, or when
you don't have minis for your players. 







The Eastern Gate of the City of Nace. 

Saturday, November 30, 2019

The Raider War Band



One square is 10 yards.

Click the link for a PDF of the 10 characters.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

The End to War




















Peninsula of Plenty World Building - Prelude to the End of War









Thursday, September 19, 2019

AD&D Druid Spell: Arclight





Level: 6                                                                                                    Components: V, S, M
Range: 0                                                                                                   Casting time: 2 segments
Duration: Instant                                                                                      Saving Throw: Special
Area of Effect: 10 yards











Wednesday, September 18, 2019

AD&D Druid Spell - Bolt from the Blue



Bolt from the Blue

Level: 5                                                                                                    Components: V, S, M
Range: 0                                                                                                   Casting time: One segment
Duration: Instant                                                                                      Saving Throw: Special
Area of Effect: One creature





Monday, September 9, 2019

Assassin's Doom - Worldbuilding for a Campaign

I've been using detailed maps for this campaign and for the last 10 days or so have been trying to create a map for the city of Nace.

Nace is laid out as a typical Roman city, a north-south road, an east-west road, a forum in the center and walls and towers all the way around. All neighborhoods are inside insulas or regular shaped areas on a grid like map.

So what do you get when you fuse a Roman city with a classic D&D campaign?

Strange things.

First, what do I need for the campaign?

A town or city with a hefty population. 15-20,000 people are in Nace.

Who is in charge? An aedile is in charge of the city proper. At this time, this character is unnamed.

Do they have temples and churches? Yes, in the forum. If there isn't place for a given sect, it is in the planning. These people have no problem with negative/evil sects so long as laws aren't broken.

Do they have guilds? Yes, for all character classes except fighters and assassins. These people would be in the military. The Assassin Guild is defunct, all members were killed. There is also a combination religious and magical guild, necessary for the production of the Empire's magical crops. Production of useful material require both magic and religion. The thieves guild is rather small time, very low level members who usually move on to bigger and better things rather than advance as thieves. The city has a problem with brigand raiding, which puts thieving in perspective.

Is there a town guard? Yes. Made up of legionaries. There used to be a secret police unit, but it was wiped out with the Assassin's Guild.

So, what is the Assassin's Doom? It will be the first City Adventure my players will engage in. In the next couple of posts, I will detail what happened to the Assassin's guild and secret police, and explain why they haven't been replaced.

Monday, August 26, 2019

Peninsula of Plenty Campaign - Background Information

My Peninsula of Plenty campaign kicked off the other night. Things are still being worked out with the players, but I would like to give a brief game report in my next post. This post, I would like to focus on background.

First, The Peninsula of Plenty is based on Roman history and mythology. My game map is still in pro-type mode and has a scale of six miles per hex. It is roughly the same size as Italy.

The capital is located on the west coast of the Peninsula. It extends eastward for approximately 2/3 of the landmass and southwards a good ways. The Empire started off as a small town, expanded to a Republic and then to an Empire just like them Roman. This culture has existed in some form or another for 1,200 years. It has fallen into stagnation.

What is different about this culture? Well, there are elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings plus a whole cast of monsters. In this setting, the dwarves occupy a couple of hundred miles around an ancient volcano on the eastern lobe of the Peninsula. They represent the various hill tribes that engaged the Romans. Halflings are invaders/refugees from over the northern mountains, gnomes are friendly towards all and the half-elves are trusted by none. On the far east coast is the Capital of the Elves and their clients the half-orcs. The elves arrived from over the sea, and represent Hannibal and the Carthaginians. For a long time, it looked as if Roman would never be free of Hannibal. Just imagine if Hannibal had magic.

Half-elves are the most prevalent race on the Peninsula, They are viewed as monsters or misbegotten children by humans and deformed but still loved creatures by the elves. The elven Kingdom believes that they have magically devolved from true elves, while the humans believe they they are the offspring of evil, horrible elves and the innocent human victims they prey upon. While neither humans or elves will treat with them as a political power, they are free to move throughout the Peninsula. Other races like them just fine.

The human Empire clashed with the elves and dwarves over slavery. The Elves forced the Empire to give up non-human slaves. This was devastating to the human economy. In just one generation, the Emperor realized he couldn't defeat the elves and in an effort to save face, presented the idea that the legendary culture which the empire was founded upon never really endorsed slavery. He was a manumissions, as opposed to an out and out abolitionist. In this way, he prevented the general public from lashing out at non-humans in a way that would create an unwinnable war. For the Emperor, it was not merely lip service, but for general public, the reception of freedom for all was not established. Debates and outright war over slavery has racked the human Empire for centuries, keeping them from dominating the Peninsula.

The human Empire, (which I have not named yet) needs to secure it's southern flank from sea raiders. They would very much like to believe that it is the elves, but it isn't the elves. To this end, they will be deploying the 55th Legion to the area. The Fighting Five-Five, will take the role of sailors, based out of the city of Tabletop*.

Since the loyalist town of Tabletop is outside of the controlled border of the Empire, the Emperor's Council has employed the PC to blaze a trail of exploration to the town. The characters are also charged with checking on the Compass Rose Inn, a former Keep on the southern border. This was done in the spirit of the module X-1 Isle of Dread.

In the very next post, I will detail the PC's adventures so far.

*Why did I name a major city Tabletop? As a child I used to fish and swim off of some submerged, tabletop like slabs of concrete on the shores of Lake Ontario. It became a part of most of my campaigns and neither I, nor my players every made the connection between "Tabletop Games" and "The Town of Tabletop" since all of us have been to this real life location which appears in most of my campaigns.

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Campaign Kick Off

I am kicking off a new campaign on The Peninsula of Plenty. Before I detail any of the events of play, I want to cover some general background and house rules.

First, Elves, Half-Orcs, and Dwarves are not allowed as character classes at the start. Humans, Elves, Half-Orcs and Dwarves are at war and the players are starting in the Human Empire's Capital. Half-Orcs are clients of the Elves and both are aligned with the Dwarves against the Human Empire. Halflings are a problem in the human realms, as they are fleeing south, over the mountains. They are at best, politically unreliable.

Below is the racial preference table we are using, which is revised from the last posting of this chart.

Peninsula of Plenty - Racial Preference Table
Dwarves Preferred Neutral Neutral Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Hatred Hatred
Elves Neutral Preferred Tolerated Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Apathy Apathy
Gnomes Goodwill Goodwill Preferred Tolerated Goodwill Preferred Preferred Preferred Goodwill
Gnolls Apathy Apathy Tolerated Tolerated Apathy Tolerated Goodwill Tolerated Goodwill
Half-Elves Goodwill Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Goodwill Goodwill Apathy Apathy
Halfling Goodwill Preferred Goodwill Goodwill Goodwill Preferred Tolerated Hatred Apathy
Half-Orc Hatred Preferred Goodwill Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Neutral Apathy
Human Apathy Hatred Goodwill Apathy Hatred Neutral Neutral Preferred Apathy
Kobold Tolerated Tolerated Goodwill Neutral Goodwill Preferred Goodwill Preferred Tolerated

As a consequence, virtually all player characters are human, although that was not the intent. I was expecting some half elves, gnomes, and kobolds. We are playing D&D, with an overlay of AD&D. It is possible to be a generic elf which is the straight D&D class, or to pick a class as per AD&D. Only one character did this, the magic user is a halfling.

Next, we are using my rules for the Swashbuckler character class and Uncommon Commoners.

I have two house rules regarding magic: Clerics get spells at 1st level and every Magic User can cast Read Magic once per day in addition to any other spells.

I have a couple house rules regarding combat: Anyone can use a shield to protect themselves, two handed. They can't cast or attack, except for a rough attempt at knocking someone back with the shield. It isn't a good idea if you are a magic user. This rule appears in Uncommon Commoners.

If a magic user or cleric is has a weapon skill due to a professional background, they can replace one weapons with that profession's weapon. For clerics who are also chefs, they can use knives, but generally don't in combat. If a magic user has a skill that allows for a different weapon, say a hammer because they are a mason, they can use that instead of a staff, dagger or dart. These rules also appear in Uncommon Commoners.

Some rule sets state that once a person has been downed, they can be revived by another player. The mechanism for this in my campaigns are either a prayer to Saint Elam or a vial of Elamium. This is a reference to anesthesiologist, James Elam, who performed experimental mouth to mouth resuscitation here in Buffalo, NY at Roswell Park. It's an anachronism owning to my hometown.

There is the expectation that a lot of combat will do subduing damage, but the players can do as they wish. If NPCs are doing this, I will not announce it, but will describe it. This circles back to the Swashbuckler class which engages in this type of combat all the time. Swashbucklers are very far from fighters or thieves. They tend to kill only by a run-through attack after offering a chance to escape. It doesn't work on animals, because they can't be disarmed. 

The first session was pretty eventful and I will detail that in another post.

Monday, July 29, 2019

The Kobold Warren Folly








There are no furnishing, no details inside the Folly.
The kobolds keep the interior bare.
The ring of trees continues, but is obscured by the
upper two levels. 




Folly Details:
One Square equals 5 feet.
Height: 45 feet.
Population: 17 adults, 33 children.

Thursday, April 11, 2019

World Building with Worldographer






Sunday, April 7, 2019

World Building Vignette #4 - Peninsula of Plenty - New Races

and Flind.
















Peninsula of Plenty - Racial Preference Table
Dwarves Preferred Neutral Neutral Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Hatred Hatred
Elves Neutral Preferred Tolerated Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Apathy Apathy
Gnomes Goodwill Goodwill Preferred Tolerated Goodwill Preferred Preferred Preferred Goodwill
Gnolls Apathy Apathy Tolerated Tolerated Apathy Tolerated Goodwill Tolerated Goodwill
Half-Elves Goodwill Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Goodwill Goodwill Apathy Apathy
Halfling Goodwill Preferred Goodwill Goodwill Goodwill Preferred Tolerated Hatred Apathy
Half-Orc Hatred Preferred Goodwill Apathy Apathy Goodwill Preferred Neutral Apathy
Human Apathy Hatred Goodwill Apathy Hatred Neutral Neutral Preferred Apathy
Kobold Tolerated Tolerated Goodwill Neutral Goodwill Preferred Goodwill Preferred Tolerated

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Reposting Peninsula of Plenty (PoP) Maps

These two maps are my first attempt at marker colored maps, in recent memory anyway.

Thanks to the guys and gals over on G+ I received a lot of advice on markering technique.
I hope to do version two in either marker or colored pencil.